[Tickets #12038] Re: Hybrid preview

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Ticket URL: http://bugs.horde.org/ticket/12038
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  Ticket             | 12038
  Updated By         | Michael Slusarz <slusarz at horde.org>
  Summary            | Hybrid preview
  Queue              | IMP
  Version            | 6.0.4
  Type               | Enhancement
  State              | New
  Priority           | 1. Low
  Milestone          |
  Patch              |
  Owners             |
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Michael Slusarz <slusarz at horde.org> (2013-02-12 23:45) wrote:

> Michael, so what about to change current behavior to one suggested  
> here? What is the point of empty message preview part anyway? (=when  
> no messages are selected)

Toggling between no preview screen and a preview screen every time you  
select/deselect a message?  That sounds like terrible UI.  At the very  
least it would give you a headache.  This is a *VERY* jarring UI  
transition.  Having this transition happen every time I delete a  
message or switch a mailbox?  Yikes.

Not to mention that what happens when the message you select is in the  
area where the preview should be?  The message list should never be  
scrolled because that is very confusing - the user doesn't know where  
they are in the list (automatically scrolling a list when an item is  
selected is a sure fire way to make users angry).  But the alternative  
is that now the message that is selected is nowhere to be seen, so the  
user doesn't know where they are in relation to the rest of the  
mailbox (or a thread) - part of the benefit of a split-preview view  
(the ability to relate the current message to the context of the  
mailbox).

And I don't see the benefit of having a longer message list.  Not only  
is it harder to process - as the number of rows visible increases, it  
becomes increasingly difficult to pick out individual rows - but there  
is very little gained to the user by providing them this list.  Almost  
all messages that a user typically is interested in appear at the  
beginning/end of the mailbox (i.e. new and/or recent messages).  So  
you are essentially showing more messages, that users are not normally  
interested in, while making it more difficult to read.

The blank preview space is not a major issue since the majority of the  
time the space is not empty - there is a message loaded.  It's not  
about packing the maximum amount of data possible on the screen.   
We've learned in the past (and I have been guilty of this) that this  
is NOT what users want.  There's a reason why our new UI utilizes more  
whitespace and has less information displayed on any given page.

As I mentioned previously, the correct solution would be to implement  
a tabbed interface that would allow people like you to view a message  
fullscreen in the current window at the maximum possible size.  This  
should be the goal we should work towards.